Physical Bulls beat up Wolves

A while after Sunday's game was over Wolves guard Ricky Rubio was sharing his admiration of the Chicago Bulls. Sunday the Bulls came to Target Center and, without the services of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Rip Hamilton -- beat the stuffing out of the Wolves.

And by that I mean physically beat up a Wolves team slowly returning to full health.

"I mean, they could complain about the guys they have hurt," Rubio said. "They don't do that. They play aggressive. We have to learn from that. If they can do that, we can do that, too.''

True enough. The Wolves got beaten on the boards and beaten to the punch. They spent more time complaining about calls to the officials than playing defense. Or at least that's the way it seemed. Minnesota finally came to play in the second half, but the Bulls never really relinquished control of the game.

Here are some more observations from tonight's game:

--Against the physical Bulls, both Nikola Pekovic and Andrei Kirilenko struggled. AK had just four points in nearly 26 minutes with just three rebounds. Pekovic ended up with 15 points, but he didn't get going until late.

--Derrick Williams ended up tying his career high with 28 points, and he did it on 11 for 18 shooting. Of those, 23 points came in the second half.

--Rubio was one fellow who played with intensity from start to finish.

That's about all for now. Jerry will be covering practice tomorrow. I'll be at Tuesday's game in Detroit..

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Jerry Zgoda missed the entire Kevin Garnett era, but he's back covering the Timberwolves after working the beat for their first four seasons two decades ago. In between, he covered a bit of everything: Gopher men's and women's basketball and NCAA athletics, golf, outdoor recreation, sports media and a little Vikings and Twins.